Gov. Terry E. Branstad, Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds and Iowa Student Loan leaders recognized today 20 Iowa high school seniors who each won a $1,500 college scholarship through participation in the Iowa Financial Know-How Challenge: Senior Scholarship, administered by Iowa Student Loan. The high school seniors from across the state were recognized in a special award ceremony at the Iowa Capitol.

This was the first year Iowa Student Loan offered the Iowa Financial Know-How Challenge: Senior Scholarship, which provided Iowa high school seniors the chance to win $1,500 for college while learning important financial literacy skills.

Between December 2013 and February 2014, registered high school seniors were asked to complete two online financial literacy tutorials — Student Loan Game Plan and the ROCI Reality Check — which Iowa Student Loan developed to help students understand the consequences of college borrowing and discover how to maximize their return on college investment, or ROCI. In addition, scholarship contenders were required to take an online financial literacy assessment test created by Ednalysis, an Iowa educational research company. Scholarship winners were determined from those who earned top scores on the assessment test.

1. Know what you spend. Carry a small spiral notebook for a month and write down everything you buy with cash or debit cards. Other spending will show up in your checkbook register or credit card statement. 2. Spend less than you make. If you find that you spend more than you make, you will need to either make more or spend less. The option of using credit […]

Some people who have fluctuating monthly incomes find it difficult to know how to set up a monthly budget. Let me give you some advice on how that is done. It may be a bit more difficult to figure it out, but with a little planning and forethought it is certainly within your reach to do. Let’s break it down into three steps: Step 1. Determine how much money […]